Lifelines: Kate's Story (35 page)

She
washed her hands and dried them. She could go on the computer, search again for
Han. She had set the computer up on David’s desk in the spare bedroom, and she
went to it now, but the room felt too cramped. She didn’t want to watch
television, and there wasn’t a book in the house she cared to read. In her mind
she felt the car around her and heard the sound of wheels on pavement. She
closed her eyes and felt the tight pull as the car took a corner just at the
edge of control. Out of control. Jennifer on the sofa, booze on her breath. Was
alcohol Jennifer’s response to crisis? Was she drinking tonight?

You
cannot control your daughter’s life.

She
needed something to do. Not driving, not reading, and not television. She
couldn’t phone her daughter, and she didn’t want to call her mother and get
into a mother-daughter tangle. Nor could she face dialing Sarah and trying to
explain why she’d called.

Mac.

She
turned off David’s computer, prowled to the modeling room where Socrates lay
asleep. Why wasn’t he dogging her footsteps tonight? When she crouched down, he
grunted and opened his eyes. They looked clear and focused.

“You’re
all right, aren’t you?”

He
gave her a disgusted look, then closed his eyes again. She couldn’t talk to a
dog who wouldn’t even look at her.

She’d
been stiff with Mac when he walked over today, hadn’t known what to do with a
husky, virile man twenty feet from her house just a few hours after she’d been
naked with him.

“I
wanted to check in,” he’d said, his eyes wary as if he knew she felt weird
around him. “Is everything all right with your daughter?”

She
wanted to tell him about Jennifer, wanted to invite him inside for coffee, but
she felt too aware that inside the house was the bedroom where she and David
had slept together. She couldn’t make love with him in David’s bed. Nothing in
Mac’s manner suggested he’d come for sex, but what if she invited him in and he
kissed her? She couldn’t take him to David’s bed, but the spare room would be
worse, as if she were an adulterous wife, hiding from her husband.

Her
discomfort must have been obvious, because he muttered something about buying
furniture, and left her without his usual smile. “Call me,” he said. “I’ll have
my cell phone.”

She
wondered why he’d come at midday, whether he’d needed to talk, and she felt
guilty, as if she’d failed a friend.

Too
much guilt, Kate.

She
sat on the bed and touched David’s thick pillow. They’d bought this bed because
she had terrible backaches after she got pregnant with Jennifer. David said
they needed a good bed, that no wife of his would suffer backaches if he could
help it. Ridiculously expensive. They couldn’t afford it with her student loans
and the mortgage payments on the house, but she hadn’t argued because—it didn’t
even make sense—she needed to do something to get rid of the memories of the
other child, the one she’d killed driving too fast.

When
they brought Jennifer home from the hospital, for six weeks she and David slept
in each other’s arms with only cuddling. She felt him waiting, and knew that
Jennifer’s birth had finally wiped out the sin of the other, unborn child’s
death.

She
fisted her hand in his pillow now, and tried to bring the first time after
Jennifer to her mind. The doctor said everything was okay, she and her husband
could resume marital relations. He’d used those words, marital relations, and
she’d told herself she would repeat it to David and they would laugh together.

Now,
she couldn’t remember either the repetition or the laughter. Sex with David had
been warm, breathless, unmarked by laughter. Grown-up, she realized as she
hugged his pillow. David’s sex was always grown-up. She would have liked
laughter and a bit of wild, but she’d first been attracted by David’s
seriousness and sense of duty. More important than the spice of laughter and
wild passion, he was the sort of man who would never send away someone he was
supposed to love. Even when she lost the baby, he’d kept her, although she
didn’t deserve it.

Where
did that come from?
Had she spent her marriage trying to deserve David’s love? In some child-part
of her psyche, did Kate believe that if she was good, David would come back?
Just as she’d once thought her dad would return in the months after she and her
mother left Alaska?

The
universe shifted and Kate saw herself sprawled on the bed, one hand fisted in
David’s pillow, cords tying her body to a husband who didn’t live here anymore.
A deep shudder brought her back into the room.

If
she stayed in this house, she would never finish grieving. Some women could do
it, she knew. She’d counseled women who had loved their husbands, women who
later lived in the same homes in new, deeply loving relationships, and didn’t tangle
the two men together in their minds.

Two
men, as if Mac were her future. Natural for her to want a sex life, but she
mustn’t start thinking of Mac as a replacement for David. She must learn to
live alone and if she saw Mac again, either as friend or lover, she must be
clear about her motives.

She
hated this damned insecurity, detested her loneliness.

She
shoved to her feet to escape herself, but David’s pillow would be waiting here
when she went to bed tonight. It wouldn’t help to stuff the pillow in a box,
either, any more than it had helped to sleep on David’s side of the bed. As his
wife, she’d sheltered inside the boundaries of couple-hood, and over the years
she’d learned to trust their marriage as a solid foundation for everything she
did as an individual.

As
David’s widow, she’d floated free, unanchored and exposed. Had she grabbed at
Mac to anchor herself? Was that lifeline image the truth? If so, was that any
worse than sitting here, talking to a ghost?

Damn
you, David. Why did you die? This is your fault.

The
curse felt forced, even David’s image felt forced, or rather, she couldn’t seem
to fit herself comfortably into her memories.

She
heard Socrates toenails click on the hardwood floor outside the bedroom.

“About
time,” she muttered. “Tell me, philosopher, what’s the answer?” She picked up
David’s pillow. “What’s the right thing to do about this?”

He
sat in the doorway. Like any good therapist, he believed in letting the client
find her own answers. Kate, either have an affair or don’t. And if you do, then
bloody well enjoy it instead of slouching about like a tragedy queen!

Kate
stripped the bed and took the spread upstairs to Jennifer’s room, where she
folded Jennifer’s quilt and replaced it with theirs. Too big; she had to fold
it double. Then she climbed back down the stairs and found the most feminine
sheets they—she owned. Pink flowers didn’t make the bedroom right, but it was
all she could come up with. She thought of moving into the guest room, but the
bed she’d shared with David would still be waiting here.

It
seemed silly to sell a perfectly good bedroom suite. Or a perfectly good house.

Socrates
walked out of the bedroom. She followed him and he led her to the kitchen
telephone. “Is this about Mac?” she asked him. She’d sent Mac away when he
came, and she knew he’d gotten the message that she wasn’t comfortable with
him. He probably wouldn’t come back unless she invited him.

“When
in doubt,” she said, “do nothing.”

The
dog cocked his head.

“It
comes down to one question, doesn’t it? Do I want a lover?”

Socrates
snorted.

“Don’t
be rude.” An echo of her orgasm feathered across her belly. “You’re right, I
did like it. And yeah, I do want to do it again.”

Socrates
turned and walked out.

“It’s
not so simple,” she shouted after him.

What
would you do if you were Jennifer’s age?

I’d
go to Mac, but what about the future?

Who
knows anything about the future?

Friends
and lovers. Surely she could manage the combination. She’d done wife, mother,
and counselor with reasonable skill. She’d had more trouble with widow.

She
picked up the phone.

M
ac spent
the afternoon in town, where he tried not to think about how uncomfortable Kate
had seemed today. After all, he’d felt much the same. Jake would tell him he
should get one mess tidied up before he made another.

He
was afraid he’d just screwed up a great friendship with sex. The whole thing
was his fault. He’d crowded her too much. Until he stopped trying to be
Rachel’s husband, he hadn’t realized how much he’d suppressed thoughts of Kate
as a woman. But he should have taken it a hell of a lot slower.

Had
she thought of David as they made love? Was that why she turned so awkward
afterwards? Exactly what had she said about David and Rachel being with them,
and what did she mean by it? It bothered him that he felt he needed to
translate Kate’s words. Until now, she’d always been direct.

He
should have stayed away today, but he’d been worried about her daughter ...
worried because Kate seemed worried. And now he’d just been talking to Rachel
on the cell phone, and he wanted Kate’s smile to convince him he wasn’t an
asshole.

When
his wife called, he’d been in the rocking chair Kate gave him, a cheese
sandwich halfway to his mouth. “The counselor can see us at ten tomorrow,”
Rachel had announced. “I’ll put a casserole on before I leave the house, so we
can come home for lunch after.”

He’d
said, “I’ve got an appointment at eleven-thirty tomorrow, so I can’t have
lunch. As for the appointment, if there’s any chance we could get in later in
the week—say Wednesday or Thursday—it would be better for me.”

“Richard
McGregor, don’t you dare run out on me! After everything you’ve put me through,
you’d better be at the counselor’s office.”

“I’ll
be there,” he’d promised.

There
wasn’t a damned thing he could do about Rachel right now, or about messing up
with Kate. Instead, he focused on what needed doing. First he checked that the
hardwood floor subcontractor had everything he needed, then he headed for his
lawyer’s office. Afterwards, he took his lawyer’s advice and cleaned everything
out of the safety deposit box, except the two gold bars Rachel had talked him
into buying. He figured she should have them. Finally, he opened a new account
in a different bank, and deposited a check for half the contents of their joint
account.

The
hour he spent with the lawyer had made him realize he wouldn’t be able to keep
both his business and his house. So he would give Rachel the house, to sell or
to live in, and she was welcome to the hunks of gold. Despite the lawyer’s
advice, he wouldn’t cancel Rachel’s credit card until she could get one of her
own.

He
didn’t look forward to picking up the papers tomorrow and presenting the
separation agreement to Rachel, but at least John would be there to help calm
her. Meanwhile, he needed new furniture and clothes to replace what Rachel had
destroyed. He took a pass through Madrona Bay’s shopping center and emerged
just before six with his pick-up loaded. If he had to live in the construction
shack until he could scrape up money for another down payment on some land,
he’d damned well be comfortable.

He
took the pick-up into the KFC drive-through, and chewed on fried chicken as he
rode back to the construction yard. When he unlocked the gate and drove into
the yard, he felt the echo of Jake. It had been four years since his father’s
death, but part of him still expected Jake to throw open the door to the office
as he parked the truck.

Kate’s
husband had been dead only a few months. Did he really expect her to replace
her David-thoughts with Mac-thoughts? Last night he’d wanted sex with her, and
today he’d like it again, but most of all he wished he could just talk to her.

He
moved the office furniture to make a path, but he had a bitch of a time with
the futon sofa. Once he wrestled the sofa into place, he managed to manhandle
the rest without any problem. By the time he’d finished, he decided Rachel had
done him a favor when she trashed his room. Without the iron bed, he liked the
look of the cedar plank walls, and the fake Middle Eastern carpet he’d added
looked pretty good, too. He’d hung a picture of a square-rigged ship in the middle
of the far wall, right over the futon sofa that made into a double bed. He’d
even found room for an easy chair, a small table, and a dresser for the new
clothes he’d bought. The new TV fit nicely on top of the dresser. He’d also
bought a microwave and stand, and a new coffee pot to replace the one Rachel
shattered.

Everything
looked pretty good, and he would have made himself coffee to celebrate if he
hadn’t forgotten to buy some. Instead, he got a beer from the fridge in the
office, and the latest National Geographic from the stack of mail on his desk.
When he sat in his easy chair, he caught himself checking the room every few
minutes.

When
his cell phone rang, he didn’t answer at first. Better not to talk to Rachel
until tomorrow in their counseling session. In the end, he grabbed the phone
and checked the call display. When he saw Kate’s number, he almost dropped the
phone in his haste to connect.

“Mac?”

He
felt himself smile. “How are you?”

“Restless.”

“Anything
I can do?” He wondered if that sounded sexually suggestive.

“You
don’t need a carpenter’s helper?”

“Not
in the dark. The carpet went in last week. I could drive over and show you.”
That sounded suggestive too, meeting at night to check out newly-laid carpet.
“How was your day?”

“It
was ... difficult. Jennifer has problems. I wish I could do more to help.”

He
set the magazine aside. “I’m sure you helped.”